“You’re truly good. People like you. And most important, I could see myself spending more than an hour per week with you.”
I scoffed. “If you have a problem spending more than an hour a week with someone, the problem probably isn’t them. It’s you.”
He sank back into his chair in the limo and ran a hand through his hair. “If you don’t want to do this, we can back out now. I know it’s a crazy idea.”
I looked outside the window and watched a couple of cars go by. “You know, when I was a little girl, I pictured myself getting married on some picturesque bluff in Spain, maybe Granada, overlooking a valley. Everyone was wearing white, and my father walked me down the aisle before he handed me to my dashingly handsome husband-to-be.
“That dream of my father walking me down the aisle died when my father passed away in my childhood.”
He put his hand on my knee. “Forget it. This is a crazy idea, let’s turn around.”
Pressing the button so the window between us and the driver went down, he yelled out, “Lenny, it’s off. Turn around.”
“Okay, Boss.”
Despair tightened in my throat when I thought about Matt, the little third-grade boy who was halfway done with treatment, and whom I’d be abandoning by heading back to Spain.
“Wait,” I said in a shy voice. No one seemed to hear me. “Lenny,” I said louder, “Don’t turn around. We’re doing this.”
His eyes flitted to Dustin. He nodded, and the driver turned around again to head back to Freddie’s.
“Might as well,” I grinned. “We’ve already posted the snapchats.”
As our limo pulled up in front of Freddie’s Walk-In Chapel, my pulse raced.
When I was a little girl, I didn’t even know places like this existed. Up until this moment, I’d only seen such places in the movies. Really outlandish movies, at that. The ones where people got married on a whim because they were drunk and woke up in the morning wondering what on earth they had done.
This was different, though.
Right?
I had finished near the top of my class at Yale. I was smart, and I’d thought this through. Maybe I was sacrificing my dream of getting married on a hill overlooking the Alhambra in Granada. Maybe I was just a teensy bit buzzed. And maybe, yes, it was after midnight. I recalled something my grandfather had always said to me as rationale for enforcing my curfew when I was a rebellious teenager:nothing good happens after midnight.But I was down to my last option here as far as staying in this country.
This wasnotimpulsive. This was a stroke of luck.
As I saw the marquee lights flashing from Freddie’s, a shudder came over my body. I was about to give up every part of the fantasy except for the devilishly handsome man.
Dustin was positively intoxicating. His body was hard and his demeanor was tough, but under that tough outer covering was something mysterious. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was.
“Are you a serial killer?” I asked.
He gave me a funny look. “Excuse me?”
“If I’m going to marry you, I’d like to know whether or not you’re a serial killer. Be honest.”
He smirked. “Even if I was ...” he leaned in toward me and whispered. His hand landed between my thighs. “I’d have to be the biggest monster in the world—and the dumbest—to do away with a pussy this sweet.”
I sucked in a breath and leaned back against his hard chest. He’d taken off his suit coat and given it to me to cover my shoulders. Yet I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a gentleman. No indeed. He liked to talk dirty. Noted.
“Well,” I whispered as I felt the heat rush between my legs. “I guess that answers that.”
“Here we are, Sir,” the driver said when we arrived.
“Perfect.”
“I’ll wait out here for you.”
“No, Lenny,” Dustin answered.
